These days, regime-controlled media, Friday prayers and all state-run tribunes in Iran are filled with warmongering hysteria and slogans meant to project power. Regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei himself claimed during a meeting with one of his foreign agents on Saturday, October 13, that the Islamic Republic has become stronger day by day since its establishment and will continue to grow stronger in the future.
During his visit to Fars Province on October 13, regime president Ebrahim Raisi said, “This state, with the support of you, the people, possesses a very valuable power, which is the power of religious people, the power of the people, an inexhaustible power.”
However, state-run newspapers with ties to Raisi’s rival faction raise concerns about the power and progress of the regime. On October 15, citing international economic sources, the state-run Arman newspaper reported, “Iran’s purchasing power among the 84 countries surveyed in 2023 ranks 81st. Only countries such as Sri Lanka, Venezuela, and Nigeria rank below Iran.”
In continuation of the same article, it states, “The real per capita income of the Iranian people was equivalent to 300 million rials in 2013. This income has decreased to 200 million rials in 2023. This decline in income has made it difficult for the Iranian people to afford the necessary goods and services.”
The same article quotes an economic expert from the regime as saying, “The national production growth has been close to zero during the past 10 years. Under such circumstances, people cannot sustain their lives with the promises made.”
On October 14, the same newspaper, in another article, quoted a social expert as saying, “In our society, those who are wealthy have no hope for the future… those who pursue education have no hope of finding suitable employment… even those who get married have no hope of being able to sustain their lives at a decent economic level. There are few countries in the world where people’s motivation for happiness has decreased to such an extent… Which countries are living in a situation similar to ours?”
Farshad Momeni, a regime-affiliated economist whose article published on September 4 on the state-run Jamaran website, says, “Out of every three Iranians, one person is in absolute poverty.” Therefore, we know that absolute poverty does not refer to the poverty line. This is because approximately 80% of the Iranian population has an income below the poverty line. Different estimates place the poverty lilne above 200 million rial per month.
The same economist discusses the “unprecedented expansion of the income gap among the poor, which is different from the poverty line. He states that the gap means a continuous increase in the income disparity between the poor and the poverty line.” He also highlights the decline and disappearance of the middle class, stating: “For the first time in the past 100 years of Iran’s economic history, the period for the doubling of the size of the poor population in Iran has reached less than three years.”
In other words, during Raisi’s presidency alone, the country’s impoverished population has almost doubled.
It becomes clear that contrary to Khamenei’s claims, the socio-economic situation is extremely critical, and the lives of the people of Iran are becoming darker and more desperate day by day. Meanwhile the situation of the Iranian society is becoming increasingly explosive. This is evident in the widespread uprisings, from the December 2017 uprising to November 2019 and September 2022, as well as the statements by regime analysts. Iran is on the verge of a revolution by the deprived and famined.
Therefore, the warmongering and power shows by Khamenei and the leaders of the regime deceive no one and only inflame the fire of the Iranian people’s anger against the oppressive regime.